Actually, the underlying story of the elections is once again not quite the one the media is portraying. The meejah is concentrating on London, London and, uhhr, London.
Using the lovely BBC election map, Labour has been doing pretty well in some of its old heartlands.
Manchester gain four
Sheffield gain one
Liverpool gain three
Bolton gain two (though The Guardian has Labour losing control of the town, which is odd as it just remains NOC)
Hartlepool, Doncaster, Wigan one each
Rotherham gain two
(edit and Bradford gain six)
Still waiting for Leeds and Bradford to come in. Both are non-Labour councils though, so you’d expect Labour gains.